Experienced hands rise through COMM ranks

Captain Richard Sargent and Deputy Chief Philip Field of the Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills (COMM) Fire Department sat down this week at the Centerville station to discuss their new lives.

Ellen Chahey

ELLEN C. CHAHEY PHOTOS

COMMANDER SHIFT – Philip Field, right, is the new deputy chief of the Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills Fire Department. Also moving up is Richard Sargent, left, from lieutenant to captain. Their combined service here totals 57 years.

A visit to department’s busiest station

Captain Richard Sargent and Deputy Chief Philip Field of the Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills (COMM) Fire Department sat down this week at the Centerville station to discuss their new lives.

Each has just received a promotion.

Sargent has been with the department for 21 years, most recently as a lieutenant/paramedic. Field has served COMM for 36 years. His promotion from captain is occasioned by the coming retirement of Craig Whiteley, who is wrapping up 44 years with the department, the last 21 of them as deputy chief. Field was promoted from within after a national search.

Whiteley politely declined to be interviewed or photographed for this article, a point of some humor among his colleagues. “But we both grew up in Cotuit,” Field joked about himself and Sargent, “so we’re always looking for people to talk to.”

In fact, both men credit the Cotuit fire service with getting them interested in the work. Sargent was actually driving a fire truck at the age of 16. Later, he went to college to study accounting, but “it felt like the same thing every day. This job fits my personality better,” he said of a life that almost by definition cannot be the same two days in a row.

Field also “hung out” at the Cotuit station, and one day when he was out with a friend, they came upon an accident and his friend knew what to do. “That’s when I decided to learn how to help, too,” Field recalled.

Although Field and Sargent will be spending more time in administration and supervisory responsibilities now, they both agree that their department’s work – in fact, the work of the fire service across the country – involves many more medical emergencies than fires. “Probably 75 to 80 percent” of their calls are for ambulance services rather than for fires, Field estimated. And, he added, the non-medical calls are more related to “alarms, smoke detectors, smells, hazardous materials, that sort of thing.”

The medical expertise that comes to a home in an ambulance is of a sophisticated level, said Sargent. For example, he said, paramedics now can insert a needle into a collapsed lung to re-inflate it. “We’re like a mobile emergency room in the back of a truck now,” he said, and added that hospitals now expect that paramedics will already have figured out what’s going on with a patient and begun to treat the problem.

Field added, “Years ago, an ambulance was probably a Cadillac and the purpose was to provide a quick and smooth ride to the emergency room. Now, the paramedics get treatment started before the ambulance is in motion.” He noted that sometimes the three ambulances at the Centerville station are out on calls at the same time.

Sargent and Field both commended COMM Chief John Farrington for his commitment to education. “We’re very lucky to have the chief we do,” one said.

The COMM fire district, at 26 square miles, houses a large population. How is Centerville unique in the configuration, and in the town, as far as the fire and rescue service is concerned?

“There’s a lot of beach,” said Field immediately, which poses rescue concerns. He added, “There’s also a large commercial area, and it’s the most populous village. Of the three stations in our district, Centerville is the busiest.”

Field also remarked about the diversity of Centerville’s population. He has noted groups of Eastern Europeans, Brazilians, and people from India and Pakistan, “all with their own particular take on things.” He also noted that “the older residents have fascinating stories to tell.”

His colleague agreed. “You meet people who talk about wars they have served in,” said Sargent, “or sometimes, although they can’t talk about it as much, people who have served in the CIA or the FBI.”

Field and Sargent agreed that many of their most meaningful encounters have taken place in the back of an ambulance. “It’s emotionally intense,” said Field, but most of the time you tend to see people – or maybe make that community – at its best. So many neighbors try to help.”

What’s ahead for the fire and rescue service in Centerville?

The Centerville station is already 21 years old. “Everyone’s surprised when they hear that,” said Field. “Yeah,” Sargent agreed, “this building came along before they had [electrical] outlets every six feet, Look around this office. Maybe there are two plugs?”

With the advent of the electronic age in medical records – a major factor for the ambulance crews – access to electric power is important because computers are essential, the officers said. “And,” added Field, “it’s starting to get crowded. Every corner has something in it.”

Field and Sargent agree that their work has changed drastically over the years. “My job doesn’t even resemble what things were like when I started,” said Field. Sargent concurred: “It’s gone from something a 16-year-old could do, to a profession.” And it has to, the agreed as they completed each other’s sentences, be “in your blood and in your soul.”

Sargent’s first day as a captain was the day of Hurricane Earl: “I figured that if I got through that on Day One, everything else would be gravy.”

And just before the two newly promoted officers led a visitor through hallways decorated with paintings and posters by Barnstable schoolchildren, Sargent advised, “Tell the Patriot’s readers they have the best fire department they can have.”